Dear Editor, In three successive centuries, the 19th, 20th, and 21st, Britain has been engaged in warfare in Afghanistan, the most inaccessible and hostile terrain in the world. Have not our leaders learned their lesson after 170 years?

Both British and American Generals know that the war can’t be won.

But politicians really believe they know better than the military.

The Taliban simply scatter and regroup as did the North Vietnamese in the ‘70s.

The Prime Minister appears to be as generous with other people’s lives as was his predecessor when he ignored up to two million people who marched in London against the proposed invasion of Iraq.

Strangely enough, recruiting figures for the armed forces are up, not down. No soldier believes he will die, that’s for the enemy. So why do so many young men and women still join the most dangerous profession in the world?

The answer is obvious in one word: unemployment.

The services provide security, higher wages than ever before, no redundancies, only the possibility of death.

If, as seems likely, the Conservatives win the next election, will they withdraw Britain from Afghanistan? Most unlikely. They are just as subservient to America as is Labour. Afghanistan could well become Britain’s Vietnam.